It will go down in history as the greatest economic scam ever. Bayer paid $66 billion for Monsanto and everyone’s wondering why.

Some 13,400 lawsuits have been filed against Monsanto after its leading herbicide Roundup (glyphosate) was deemed a probable carcinogen. A jury awarded a plaintiff $289 million in the first case, reduced upon appeal to $78.5 million. But before anyone at Monsanto could celebrate, the next jury ordered them to pay $2 billion (yes, that’s a “b”). With another 13,398 cases to go (and growing), Bayer was nonetheless happy to pay $66 billion for Monsanto, knowing full-well these lawsuits could make the tobacco settlements of the 1990’s look like chump change.